Rhymes with Pain
by kfb28
Summary: If Jeyne were dying, and Sansa and Theon were forced to face each other... Sansa/Theon confrontation. Spoilers for both books and show.


"**Forgiveness is the answer to the child's dream of a miracle by which what is broken is made whole again, what is soiled is made clean again."**

**Dag Hammarskjold **

**Sansa**

She had never seen anything as devastating or horrifying as a birth gone wrong. The air would reek of blood and sweat, and was poisoned with the grunts and screams of the mother. The blood wouldn't, couldn't, stop or slow and usually the babe was lost. The mother would hover for a few hours, lingering on the threshold between life and death, as the shadows slowly began to claim her for their own.

Jeyne's body was convulsing before her, her breathing shallow and her body slicked with sweat. Her seventh baby was stuck, and Sansa was pacing madly as the midwife tried in vain to save it. Theon was outside, innocent to Jeyne's swift degeneration. Sansa was torn between telling him what was happening and leaving him blind. _Like he had done to Robb._

She didn't like to think herself bitter- she had married Jaime, the man whose family had attempted to destroy hers yet she still loved him and their babes. Granted, it hadn't been a choice, but she wouldn't have chosen Theon for her friend from girlhood.

But _oh,_ how Jeyne loved him. Sansa hadn't seen any couple who had as easy a relationship as they had. They were incredibly synchronized, and could read each other's faces like Tommen read his books. A slight quirk in the lip, and they knew if the other was angry, or scared, or bemused. It was amazing and infuriating to watch- Sansa couldn't read her own children that well, let alone her husband.

Sansa's son Rickard had grown up with Jon's Max and Theon's Kaelan, and Robb's two surviving sons, Robert and Eddard. She had found it difficult to trust Kaelan, who strongly resembled his father- right down to that infamous smirk which played across his lips whenever he said anything. Kaelan infuriated her even more by the attention he paid her daughter Aoife, and her daughter's returning of that affection was the only thing which enraged her more. Jaime thought it romantic, she could tell from the way his eyes twinkled when he watched them dance at feasts. Or maybe it was all in her head, and she simply wanted to disapprove of a perfectly good match for Aoife because of his father.

But she didn't hate Theon. She longed to hate him, to hurt him as much as he had hurt her but the internal resolve did not exist within. She thought of the boy who had grown up with her, who had teased her and who taught her all the bad words her lady mother never said. He had been a much more entertaining brother then Jon or Robb- both too serious or honourable to ever teach her that language.

Sansa disentangled herself from her thoughts to focus on the scene in front of her- Jeyne's breathing was now truly haggard, each shallow breath had become a struggle. She only stood back and watched in horror as she slowly remembered what was happening. The pit of her stomach writhed as she left the room to bring Theon in. The way the midwife scrambled, how Jeyne's hands gripped the sullied sheets was proof of who would be surviving this birth.

Sansa floated across the stuffy chamber to the heavy oak door, and she opened it with only a blip of hesitation as she stepped out into the hall where Theon waited. His eyes shone for a moment, before he registered the expression on Sansa's face. His eyes grew wide as he stepped by her and entered the chamber.

She followed him, step for step as if she were his shadow, and stopped right behind him as he kneeled by his wife. His dark eyes were tearing up now, as he took Jeyne's small white hand in his. Sansa looked over to the mid-wife, who had pulled the babe from Jeyne. He was screaming for his mother who was moments from death. Sansa went to other side of the bed, and held Jeyne's hand.

It was miraculous that Jeyne was still breathing but her eyes were closed- they were fluttering steadily, and Sansa felt her own eyes begin to tear. She looked over to Theon, whose tears were pouring down his cheeks. Sansa looked over to the wailing child and the tired midwife, and got up once again. She went beck around to Theon, and touched his shoulder. He looked up to her, and Sansa saw the immediate denial to what she was going to say.

"Theon, we should leave." Sansa bent down to take his hand as he shook his head stubbornly. She reached out to him, and cupped his cheek with her hand, forcing him to look at her.

"Theon, you don't want to spend the rest of your life closing your eyes and seeing her like this." Sansa's thumb traced circles on his cheek, similar to how she comforted her children. Theon's eyes looked haunted, as his lips contorted to find something to say.

"She is my life. Without her, I don't have anything," he muttered, trying to look back at Jeyne.

"You have seven children. Your son is crying out for a parent to hold him. Jeyne.."

"Jeyne is the one person who loves me. My children, they will learn about me, and turn their backs. If I wasn't the father of the heirs to the Iron Islands, my head would be on a spike. You all hate me. You will probably continue to hate me until you die, and then you will hate me from whatever place exists beyond this life."

Theon turned back to Jeyne, and kissed her forehead before muttering into her ear. She was still alive, but she would die within the next few hours. Theon stood up, and walked over to his son. The baby was quieter then before, and Theon took his son into his arms.

Sansa followed Theon as he left the room for the nursery, and she asked a servant for wine on the way. When she arrived, Theon had placed his son in a crib, and looked at him with sad eyes.

"Your life is perfect, you know that?" he asked quietly, as the servant came with the wine. Sansa gestured for the man to leave, before offering Theon a cup, which he took.

"My life looks perfect." Sansa sat down quietly watching Theon.

"You are so, loved. You are like Robb, never needed to prove anything or do anything for people to fall over themselves for you." Theon inhaled, and took a large gulp of wine.

"Stop blaming Robb and I for your problems." She coolly brought the cup to her lips, waiting for his predictably swift response.

"I am not… blaming you. I just want you to see what I see for once."Theon once more looked down at his son, as the wet nurse entered the room so that she could feed him. Sansa gestured for the woman to go to the next room over from the nursery and as soon as the woman did, she turned to Theon.

"When I look in the mirror, I see what you and all other men see. I see an object to fuck, not a person. That's why men fall over themselves for me- nothing more, nothing less." Sansa looked up at Theon, studying his face. It was unnerving how little his face gave away now, but she supposed the Bastard of Bolton was truly capable of anything.

"You are also kind and virtuous. Me, I am an oathbreaker and a turncloak all because I chose my family over Robb," he licked his lips after, a clear sign of discomfort. Sansa didn't consider herself a bully, but she did like to see him squirm. It was satisfying, to see a man punished for his crimes; to live with the ramifications of turning away from the pack.

"You chose your blood over your family. We raised you, fed you, trained you and you threw it back in our faces. Your actions led to Robb's death, the sack of Winterfell and the Starks' fall and no apology can change what has been done against us. So yes, you deserve those names- I hope they haunt you until you die and your soul descends to whatever hell you shall spend the rest of eternity paying for your crimes." Theon didn't flinch at her words, but fixed a cold glare on her.

"You are still the little girl that was left in Winterfell, you know that? I have been to hell and back, a genuine hell where I had to drink my urine and eat rats, raw like an animal. Jeyne and I," he paused and teared at the name of his dead wife, "were used like animals. We weren't kept in a castle in the sky, nor in a castle by the bay but in hell itself."

"I fail to see how this is my fault." Sansa attempted to steer the conversation back, but Theon would have none of it.

"I have paid for my crimes, in ways you will never know." He glared at her once more, before turning his back to her and looking out the window. Sansa felt an angry heat take root in her belly, as she leapt up at him.

"What of my life? I didn't do anything to anyone but be born looking a certain way. Apparently, my beauty meant Joffrey was allowed to beat me, that Baelish was allowed to touch me and that men were allowed to grope me. Would you like to explain the logic of that- at least what you suffered can be considered a moral punishment." Sansa stopped to inhale and straighten her back- she hadn't meant to lose control like that, especially in front of Theon.

"What of Jeyne?" was all that was croaked in return, and Sansa realized from the shaking shoulders and hoarse voice that he was crying.

"I swore to her that I would protect her, and I killed her. If I hadn't let her carry the baby, if I had made her drink moon tea, I told her she was too old, if only…" Theon's tears choked out the rest of his sentence, and he crumpled to the ground, hunched over himself. She stared at him, and saw past the man who betrayed her brother and instead the man who had helped Jon destroy the Bastard, and the man who had lost the pack. It all came back to the pack with Theon- he may be a kraken but he was raised a wolf. As much as she wanted to see him punished, it was on a scale far outweighed by her inability to watch him be continually punished.

He was the Hand of the North, and brought its fist down upon its assailant, Ramsay. He had made her friend Jeyne impossibly happy after all the horrible things which had happened to her.

Sansa felt a wave of sympathy cool the warm in her stomach, and she crouched down behind him. She placed her arms around him, unable to resist the sympathy she felt. He had been a brother before, and maybe he could be one again.

"Theon, Jeyne wouldn't have listened to you." Sansa pressed herself against his back as he cried harder and harder, the tears falling at an unprecedented rate.

"She was the one thing I had going for me," he whimpered, and Sansa touched the back of his head.

"No, you have seven other people who love you, and need you. And you have the Starks, and Asha." Sansa pat his back, and his tears abetted a bit.

"After all that has been done?"

"After all that has been done." _The pack sees you as one of its own._ Sansa felt Theon bow his head to cry once more, and she let him.

**Author's Note:**

I have had this idea rambling around in my head for awhile, and it is based on my previous ASOIAF stories. I have always wondered how a Sansa/Theon fiction would go…

Please, read and review for it is the only way authors can improve. And reviews are love


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